President Obama Needs to Cut Ties with This Alleged Grifter

As I think we've mentioned several dozen times in this shebeen, the president's inexplicable sweet-tooth for the grifters, rounders, and mountebanks of the school "reform" movement is one of the most puzzling aspects of his years in office. One of the most egregious examples of this is the president's willingness to associate with Kevin Johnson, former NBA point guard, mayor of Sacramento, and husband of queen-bee grifter Michelle Rhee. On many levels, Johnson is a truly awful human being.

This revelation comes as Johnson is in the worst spot of his three-decade run in the public eye. ESPN canceled the debut of Down in the Valley, a documentary that deified Johnson for having finagled $255 million in public money to keep the local NBA franchise in his hometown but totally ignored his well-documented dark side. The seamiest portions of Johnson's back story involve the many allegations of sexual abuse and harassment that have come his way his way since the mid-1990s. Johnson has never been charged with a sex crime, but ESPN's shelving the movie comes amid growing suspicions that a key reason none of the abuse claims made against him derailed his rise to power is that he made legal settlements that forced alleged victims to hush up.

Is there political ratfcking? Is there financial malfeasance? I don't know. What do you think?

The biggest of the demands is that Williams must stop contesting Johnson's petition to dissolve the NCBM through the bankruptcy courts. That would mean Johnson's goal of doing away with the group would be complete. (Johnson started a competing organization, called the African American Mayors Association, the day after he filed a Chapter 7 petition for the NCBM that board members of the group now say was illegitimate. Ballard Spahr is now serving as legal counsel for Johnson's new group—pro bono, of course.) The strangest demand? "Mrs. Williams would retract all of her statements to Deadspin pursuant to the settlement agreement," reads Pittinsky's settlement offer. "She would not have to say her statements were false. All she would have to do is retract them and agree not to talk to Deadspin again." Since late last year, Williams has spoken with Deadspin about Johnson, accusing him of various professional and personal malfeasances related to the NCBM coup. Williams says she is personally broke as a result of Johnson freezing NCBM's bank accounts in 2013 and taking sponsors away from the group.

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Is there the deliberate destruction of political opponents? Opinions vary.

Whether there was an actual concerted effort to bankrupt Williams is an open question; either way, the discovery phase of her civil case against Johnson has produced bizarre evidence. In one email chain, for example, members of Johnson's coup team—which included at least four private public relations firms plus the communications staff of the city of Sacramento—discuss a TV news report slamming Williams that aired on the Fox affiliate in Atlanta. Enoch Woodhouse, who until recently served as superintendent of St. HOPE, Johnson's charter school chain in Sacramento, suggests to correspondents including Johnson's wife Michelle Rhee and Aisha Lowe, executive director of Stand Up, a charter school advocacy group founded by Johnson, that a settlement may leave Williams too impoverished to "continue to live her lifestyle."

There is nothing redeeming about this man. There is nothing redeeming about his wife. There is nothing redeeming about what they are trying to do to public education while enriching themselves. The president should cut these grifters loose. Yesterday. And John Stockton was a better player anyway.

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